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Goodbye Rdio and farewell Songza

I didn’t realize how much I liked Rdio until the pioneering music streaming company declared bankruptcy last month. I was an early adopter of the service, and while it never ended up replacing the roles of vinyl and digital files in my life, it a big part of my routine without me even noticing.

I definitely wasn’t the only former Rdio user at Google Play Music’s press conference in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon hoping the tech giant was going to announce something that would convert me to their music streaming app. Instead, the big news was that they are folding Songza into Google Play Music in Canada, which allows them to offer free streaming alongside subscription streaming.

While some dedicated Songza users are distraught over their favourite platform coming to an end, from what I could tell they should be able to transition smoothly to the new interface without adjusting their habits much. In many ways, the free streaming side of the app is most similar to traditional radio in that you can’t call up individual albums or songs, but you can stream themed playlists with occasional interruptions from ads. Playlists are either created by humans according to various genres, activities and contexts, or constructed via algorithms generated by whatever you search for. And if you miss the sound of radio announcers, the service also offers support for podcasts.

This model is fine for casual music lovers who aren’t sure what they want to listen to, but you’d really need to pay the monthly subscription for it to function as an extension of your record collection. If you were in the habit of bingeing on an artist’s back catalogue on Rdio, you will be frustrated by the free version of Google Play Music’s limitations.

This two-tier system is increasingly the model the music streaming industry is settling into. Rdio’s subscription-only service failed largely because it wasn’t able to attract enough listeners willing to pay each month. While ads support free streaming services, the model can only work financially by omitting the on-demand aspect due to how royalties are structured.

There is a battle developing around streaming, as the various competitors buy each other out and consolidate. Pandora (the company that acquired most of Rdio) has begun aggressively courting labels with more generous royalty agreements, and calling out free-subscription competitors for devaluing music. Big-name artists like Adele and Taylor Swift have started pulling their albums from streaming services, citing unfairly low royalties.

For those of us who care about how musicians will be able to afford to record albums when fewer and fewer people buy music, the royalty question is important. One of the big reasons I continued to pay a monthly subscription to Rdio was that I wanted to feel like I was contributing something back to the artists. But when the numbers appear to show Rdio was operating at a substantial loss, where was that money going?

Unfortunately, most of the details of the deals between streaming services and labels are kept under wraps, partly because everyone wants to get the best deal from each other. What we do know is that the major labels are starting to make more money from streaming than from selling MP3s, which gives us a hint as to why both artists and streaming companies are struggling. Those impressive profits confirm streaming is the way forward for recorded music, but also that maybe it’s time for the system to become a lot more transparent and fair.

If governments across the major markets could collaborate on establishing standards that all streaming companies and labels would be subject to, those services would be forced to compete on the merits of their actual platforms. As it stands right now, the winners are more likely to be the companies that can afford to play a game of chicken and take a loss until their competitors go under. There’s got to be a better way.

benjaminb@nowtoronto.com | @benjaminboles

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